


Slow Leave

by Queue



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Iambic Pentameter, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 14:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queue/pseuds/Queue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Consider, if you will, how <i>Hamlet</i> might/have ended had Horatio stopped the fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Leave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Martha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martha/gifts).



> Mille grazie to nos4a2no9 for betaing well above and way beyond the call of duty, and to La Mama for always assuming there was nothing I couldn't do and making sure I knew she thought so.

HORATIO:  
I beg you, o my lord: do not go through  
to that fell area, where, even now,  
Laertes waits, alit with vengeful fire,  
his flame fed by your uncle's poisoned words  
and poison doubtless drip't on blades as well—  
e'en cups, in case—

[HAMLET gestures in angry denial]

You know they'd do it, man!  
When souls have blackened so, whether 't is lust  
or hunger for incestuous revenge—  
itself another kind of unclean need,  
so clerics say—that chars the spirit, naught  
can stop such charcoal'd fiends from seizing on  
whatever toy or tool lies ready there  
to hand and twisting it to their foul ends.  
Think you they'd stop at undermining this,  
which ought to be a duel 'twixt two men  
each fighting for his honor and his love  
of family, of country, of all things  
that worthy are of high regard—think you  
they'd scruple thus, when victory lies near  
o'er their shared enemy: my lord, the true  
and rightful heir of Denmark's ruling house,  
and sole avenger of your valiant sire?

[HAMLET repeats the gesture, weakly]

I know you comprehend my meaning. You,  
whose every thought for long and long has been  
of naught but punishing those who, deep-mired  
in their own base desires, betrayed the one  
true ally you possessed within these walls  
(though, sadly, knew you not this was the case)—  
I have no doubt you hear me and agree,  
much as you sore might wish it otherwise.  
Else why would you so publicly "mislay"  
what passes here for sanity? Why prate  
as wicked witlings might, until all those  
who from a boy had known you doubted much  
if you were still the man you'd seemed to be  
before that death and marriage which, as if  
the Roman twins or Gemini inspired  
their timing, came the other right upon  
the one in bloody, swift succession? 'T was  
a shield you brought to bear against the threats  
that lay implicit in those actions. Your  
purported madness blunted that intent  
your sometime uncle held—not secretly  
or tentatively, but with grasp like that  
of snake in flesh when death locks down its jaws—  
to, having won his wife, ensuring then  
that no seed born of her but not his own  
would ever brother's throne reclaim from him  
or brother's honor raise from where he'd laid  
it low and blanketed with muffling earth  
the clangor of the secrets it could tell  
against him. Certain sure, he still desired  
that you should die, so soon as he could force—  
but slaughtering a fool? That gave him pause  
enough to buy you time.

[HAMLET has moved away from HORATIO, but he is clearly listening]

Which, now, you have.  
And yet you'd waste it so, in shallow play  
of swords against Laertes? Shame, my lord.  
Your father would not want it so. His shade  
depends on you to succor it, give aid  
to it in Purgatory where it bides  
unshriven and unrestful, tossed by tides  
that mortal men sail not. I dare to say  
that nothing under Heaven could convey  
your most express and filial regard,  
your payment of due honor to your guard  
and champion from your birth—that ghost who, sin  
besmirch him though it did, as all who in  
this world must move, behaving as they might  
in stumbling their way from wrong to right  
before the final reckoning, did try  
to raise you as a prince within as out,  
to inculcate in you, bone-deep, a sense  
of obligation to your family  
both after and before they'd Lethely drunk—  
no other task, I tell you, so would prove  
that all his patient time with you bore fruit  
than if you'd turn your back on engineer'd  
and temporary resolution of  
that tangle you propose to scythe straight through  
by taking up your uncle's wager. Think  
you not that one so fine, so worthy of  
regard and honor—yes, and love also—  
as your paternal parent full deserves  
a lengthier avengement than this night's  
created theatre of blood provides?  
You hired players, Hamlet. Here you play  
a part you did not even have the chance  
to write, no matter how much you might think  
the circumstances otherwise. The king—  
the current king, the royal thief—'t is he  
who gives you and Ophelia's brother your  
orations, moves you on the stage he sets,  
predicts and orchestrates your every move.  
'T is he who wins tonight, no matter which  
of you draws blood—unless you walk away,  
reject his script, and bide your plotful time  
in safer halls and countries 'til you may  
a worthy opportunity create  
or find to give your father's spirit all  
its due: take down your uncle, show those who  
would hold him up as model what false clay  
he's built upon and of, redeem your house,  
and give he who begat you final peace.  
True blood, my prince, will tell. You cannot pay  
your debt to your dear father in this way.  
If you allow Laertes' rapier time  
to pierce your heart, your honor's but a mime.

 

HAMLET:  
Horatio, you know not what you say.  
My father was betrayed into his grave  
by one as close as blood could make them. One  
who, veins ablaze for crown and kin, betrayed  
that blood for other waters, body-made—  
bestrode my mother, queen, repulsive whore,  
base woman, base to _him_, my uncle, like  
a wretched, rough-hewn table to its dish  
or once-fine, scarréd pedestal to poor  
and badly crafted pottery—and clutched  
in vain for that which, jew'l'd and gilt, adorned  
my honored parent's brow. 'Til he, once struck  
by Fortune's black-fletched arrow, seized upon  
a most unnat'ral and ill remedy  
for this, his vile dilemma: poison. That  
rings strangely o'er-familiar in your ears,  
is't not the case? It certain should: as you  
yourself droned on about above, a fell  
and sim'lar method likely now does plan  
my uncle on this night to work my end  
and that of poor Laertes. Doubt it not,  
speechful Horatio, for Claudius  
surpasses capability in this,  
in that he more than capable has proved  
himself of taking tacks so low that if  
a ship were tacking thus, its prow would sink  
below indiff'rent waves, there shortly to  
be followed by the dooméd vessel's stern  
and—o, stern fate—her company entire.  
Such tactic here it is he plans to use  
in ridding self and realm (for so he styles  
this land of which my father he deprived  
along with life and wife) of dual foes:  
his pseudo-son, myself, who danger shows  
him always, as the one who sees him for  
the charlatan he is and ever was;  
and weak Polonius's son, who loved  
his sister, not too wisely, but too well.  
_This_ is my blood—this traitorship, this dire  
and dreadful treachery. Alternatives?  
Perhaps a sanguinarius exam  
of my maternal source? Think you that would  
bring forth a different answer here? Ah, no:  
no matter what the genealogy  
we entertain tonight, it seems to me  
that I am damned—by birth, by blood, by act,  
by every circumstance set down as fact.  
What honor should accrue to blood, in light  
of all that I describe herein tonight?  
If that rouge fluid has a role to play  
in this, I'll shed Laertes', sans delay.

 

HORATIO:  
My lord, I hardly credit what I hear  
from your beloved, yet mistaken, mouth.

[HAMLET makes to protest. HORATIO cuts him off]

Is't possible you truly think that he  
who murdered, fornicated, and engaged  
in every base activity and act  
his over-fecund brainpan could recall  
(and e'en a few which, finding evil known  
to be not quite depraved enough for him,  
he thus invented)—he who, not content  
to cozen all within his reach, o'erstretched  
without his proper bounds, laying his hands  
(and other parts) on queen and country which  
should never his have been, and gloried then  
in excremental triumph—_he_ you see  
as publicly defining what your blood,  
your lineage comprises? Nay, 't is not  
the case, I tell you. Nor will ever be  
as long as you draw breath. You are the king,  
my lord. You come of kings. You will be one  
in truth, as now you are in spirit and  
inheritance—not from that dastard who  
squats, gargoyle-like, in occupation of  
your father's rightful place which now should be  
your own, but from that relative to whom  
you long ago swore fealty, and he  
to you. As could not otherwise have been  
the case, so like in high regard, in fierce  
intelligence, in loving most all that  
which is with truth and honor deep infused,  
from birth were he to you and you to him,  
though at your birth he bearded was. You had  
a bond of souls between you. How else could  
it be that, given all a kingdom's folk  
from whom to choose before them to appear  
and clarify his punishment, his death,  
and what that latter unsung tragedy  
required that he might, working out his debt  
in walks by night and fiery place by day,  
eventually be given blessed rest,  
he sought you out? He would not talk to us;  
you heard Marcellus say so. Though we tried  
to give him ear, he wanted only you  
to hear him. It must follow, as the night  
most commonly does day: your worthiness  
of spirit drew your father's spirit there  
to bind you once again to him. Recall:  
he was a soldier. As, indeed, are you.  
(I speak now lit'rally, no puns implied  
or e'en suggested on the point of swords  
and combat-readiness in bed.) And well  
you know that oaths of loyalty, to those  
who carry arms for lengthy portions of  
their lives, are vital, even more than for  
those unarmed men that honor still hold dear.  
Your father was one such—beweaponed from  
an early age, trained up to battle, taught  
to value qualities which on the field  
thereof would save his life and lives of those  
responsibility for whom he held,  
his liegemen. Hamlet: who among those men  
a-pledged to Hamlet pére would he have seen  
as peer to him in any pikeman's way  
save you? Not one. And therefore, tell me: whose  
avowal of adhesion to his aims  
and int'rests would your father most have prized?

[HAMLET is speechless (for once)]

I see you take my meaning. Well, my lord.  
But, lest you think reiteration of  
my prior point regarding lineage  
comprises all my thrust this time, allow  
me to push on a little further.

[HAMLET makes a "get on with it" gesture; HORATIO complies]

Swords  
and swordsmanship I speak of now—and more:  
ability to fight, not solely hand  
to hand, but company to company,  
battalion to battalion, larger group  
to larger group.

[HAMLET raises an eyebrow at this unorthodox language]

You know I am no man  
at arms, to know this language from my birth;  
do not make pretense to discomprehend  
because vocabulary martial fails  
to hit my tongue as readily as yours.  
The art of war: Those bred to battle have  
the knack. But those who, second coming, bide  
their time behind some woman's curtains or  
take vows of celibacy, all black-clothed,  
and, either having chosen, wait until  
some power falls within their purview—they  
will never hold that skill. Your father it  
had mastered. So have you. But Claudius—  
forever second son and curtain-stained—  
is lacking qualities which on a field  
of battle would demand allegiance. Shorn  
of rhetoric: he cannot helm a war.  
You know that Norway comes—the son, like sun  
proceeding hotly, burning off the mist  
of recent history to claim this land  
in new-ascended usurpation. Think  
on this, my dearest lord: it is our fate  
without exception, save that you escape  
from Claudius's machinations, free  
yourself from this compulsion that you have  
to let him call the tune (a martial march  
with fife and drum? how woefully he plays  
these instruments, this man who never learned  
the way to battle wage!), depart this land  
for some short time, assemble what you can  
by way of arméd forces, marshal them  
attendant on events inevit'ble  
and, when your uncle's poised to lose his fight,  
move in, trump Norway, play your cards, and win.  
My prince, consider: if you let this boy  
Laertes so divert your uncle's wrath  
through his own bile-tipped blade into your side,  
then none will winners be our country wide.  
If thoughts revengeful cannot bid you go,  
Can rescuing your birthright lands do so?

 

HAMLET:  
You are a trifle canine, friend. Like those  
who trail, four-leggéd, after masters thus  
appointed princip'ly for that they will,  
as regular as clockwork, feed and pet,  
erect a roof, and otherwise provide  
in order thus to bind where they have need,  
you're doggéd. Not a dog—I would not so  
impugn your honor, for indeed you have  
more of that quality than any hound  
of my acquaintance, yes, and most men, too—  
but, once you've sunk your teeth into ideas  
or topics, rarely do you loose them with  
a will, instead exhausting them. As here:  
I tire, Horatio. Come to your point.  
You speak of lands, of property. Cannot  
you see how little aught of that can mean  
to me, who is without a soul here in  
this world to whom I first in their regard  
can ever hope to come? Alone I came  
into what passes for my life; alone  
I contemplate departure. Skin and bone  
and sinew have I, temporarily.  
My land is far more permanent. But he  
who slew my father now infects that earth  
that otherwise had come to me from birth.  
If I had aught to counterbalance this,  
I'd be content. I've naught. Bring on Death's kiss.

 

HORATIO:  
How, then, my lord, may this your servant hope  
to pry you loose from what you think you've sworn  
to give herein, in front of all the court—  
that most uncourtly and discourteous swarm  
of flies, abuzz about the hasty and  
unsav'ry stew of rotten, foul revenge  
your uncle and Ophelia's brother have  
cooked up in order to achieve your end?  
How may I make you see—though long your eyes  
have blinded been, through your own agency,  
to any such acuity of sight  
as I would fain bring into those keen orbs—  
that if you draw your sword and face this man  
(if "man" indeed he merits—rather, "boy"  
would suit this verdant, grassy floweret  
whose bloom shows, even now, to be that kind  
which nightshade boasts, and henbane—yes, and all  
the other pain-filled plantlings gard'ners strive  
to kill and thereby keep their lords alive),  
you do exactly that which most would please  
the king, that too unkind of kin? He wants  
your death, my lord. I say it plain again:  
he wants your overthrow from life itself  
as you do his, no matter what the queen  
might say in protestation to you both.

 

HAMLET:  
Horatio, you ramble. If by chance  
your poniard speech has point, bring it to bear  
against my ear, that I may feel its prick  
and, feinting thus, disarm and draw first blood  
of your verbose regard, as soon I shall  
from green Laertes do. He'll grow no more  
when I've had satisfaction here.

 

HORATIO:  
My lord,  
I hear you and, reluctantly, obey.  
(I'd thought to natter might delay his zeal  
sufficiently to keep him off the lists  
until such time as bodily I took  
his body, so beloved, in my arms  
and, argument most sadly having been  
in vain, proceeded then to drag him off  
to privacy, there to express my need  
for him, which is like lungs' for breath, in less  
fraught circumstances. O, alas, for time  
to thus luxuriate in respite! But  
this too too without patience lord of mine  
will not allow it. Thus, engage.) My prince,  
your servant here your man has ever been,  
from childhood through our student days to now.  
Inseparable, save when royal tasks  
and duties took your time and left me by  
myself—without a purpose, since that core  
and center of my orbit was elsewhere—  
we'd move almost in tandem, save that you,  
a leader from your marrow out, always  
must be in front just that much—just enough  
to clearly show the world who's master here.  
And I, not loathe to yield first place to him  
whom I would follow wheresoe'er he led,  
I've given you what paltry treasures I  
possess, though little oft they seem to me  
compared to what you bring our contract. Here's  
my pauper's heart; my purse, for what it's worth;  
my wretched body, meeting somehow with  
approval in your eyes despite its lacks  
and lurches (or, perhaps, because of them?  
for surely beauty such as yours betimes  
exhausts itself, such gracile excess tires  
of holding up itself to standards set  
by angels, and, relinquishing for but  
a moment all the gathering of bone  
and sinew that perfection must require,  
seeks for itself a baser stage, a less  
exacting audience, and so commits  
itself to newly climb accustomed heights  
through seeing once again how bright it shines  
against mere mortal background); my weak wit,  
which cannot match your own, but glories in  
the trying, since it gives you pleasure; my  
small sometime skill at pleasuring, of which  
I'm pleased—nay, more than pleased, filled with delight—  
to share with you in substance and in act—

[HAMLET leans purposefully towards HORATIO. HORATIO holds up a hand to fend him off]

I cry you nay, my heart-held lord! Do not  
distract me thus. (The night moves on apace  
and I my point must still somehow make clear  
to him, or risk the loss of all my world.)  
What place upon my list had I announced  
when you took my attention from my long  
and fervent peroration, tempting me  
to seize you—even here, in Elsinore,  
where walls have ears and mouths, and nothing say  
they ever that they do not, saying, soil,  
besmirch, and render less than what it was  
before their building bile oozed into it—  
to seize you nonetheless and close with you  
in what, while welcome to us both, would not  
appear to any who might interrupt  
our time here as a brotherly embrace  
(unless they with their brother played at sport  
more suitable to those without shared blood)?

[HAMLET moves towards HORATIO a second time, reaching for him; HORATIO backs away]

I cry you once again: do not lay hands  
on me until I've spent my argument  
in force upon your obdurate intent  
to set your booted feet upon that path  
which cannot help but lead you to your doom  
and, out of words for once, fall back at last  
upon the only language I possess  
no doubt that both our selves are fluent in.

[HAMLET, seemingly spurned, turns his back on HORATIO and starts practicing his swordplay]

(And then, let fluids fluent flow! But first  
I'll finish what I came to start, and hope  
my lord, the axis of my globe, can hear.  
What else, what else? My wits are scattered by  
his close proximity—beneficent  
phenomenon, save that we're no wise safe  
in this location, and, although betimes  
our timing's synchronized most adm'rably,  
here's neither place nor time to make that feat  
repeat itself. If somehow, with such words  
as I may feebly bring to bear, I can  
convince my honored lord to leave this place  
tonight and fly with me elsewhere, there to  
revive in mind and soul his martial self  
until, recoveréd, he's once again  
the man he needs must be to Denmark claim  
and Denmark's fallen ruler lay to rest  
most properly, I'll seize my moments, give  
my yearning ample time to play on him  
with dedication, avaricious greed,  
and love—of him, of what we do, of that  
which, being him, he brings alive in me  
without assaying ever so to do  
or even knowing his effect. For now,  
I'll turn my love from bodily concerns  
to words. I've said enough—and more, perhaps—  
on family and country here tonight.  
I know that Hamlet hears me—and I know  
that, though he teeters on the brink of wild  
and fatal action, easily he could  
be swayed to safety—not that refuge of  
the coward, but such haven for his rest  
and full recuperation as I here  
have something quick described. I'll speculate,  
with currency so dear to me that I  
can scarce believe I spend it—even though  
if not expended here, tonight, on him,  
it's worthless scrap—that words of love may shock  
him just sufficiently to, as it were,  
achieve the tipping point. Thus knocking him  
from deadly perch, disarming him, and so  
preserving him to fight another day  
when anger and distress have had their say  
and calculating, cold decisions can  
be carefully discerned—aye, there's the plan.)

[As HAMLET has obligingly been entertaining himself throughout this inner conversation, HORATIO now faces the task of getting HAMLET's attention]

Ho! Hamlet! Sire!

[HAMLET ignores him, continuing to slash about with his sword. HORATIO raises his voice a little]

My lord!

[HAMLET picks up the pace a bit; HORATIO gives up and simply shouts at him]

My liege!

[HAMLET's swordstrokes slow]

My friend  
and comrade, stay your hand and hear me.

[HAMLET lets his sword fall by his side, but keeps his back to HORATIO]

Thanks.  
I pray you: give me ear for but a small  
and insignificant amount of time  
additional to what you here have spent  
already. One last thought I have to share.  
If you still fixéd are on current plans  
when I've expressed it, I'll withdraw.

[HAMLET swings around, looks at HORATIO for a moment, and then nods]

My lord:  
once we'd completed our first year at school,  
I told you I did not intend to see  
my native land again on anything  
but temporary terms. I'd found my place  
in Germany, and thus in life. Bad Dane?  
Perhaps—but I was ever out of that  
which ordinarily acceptable  
seemed to our countrymen. For me, a home  
takes definition, not from history  
or forebears, not from floor and ceiling or  
from where an occupation forces one  
to live, but from a sense of rightness that  
can no more be explained than seen, but must  
be felt. I thought, in Wittenberg, that I  
had felt it—that that town, so full of thoughts  
and dreams, had come to me as in a dream  
and said "This is where you belong." And then  
you left. At once, I realized my fault  
in thinking that a place, a town, could be  
a home to me without your presence there.  
When first you saw me here some while ago  
you asked me, "What make you from Wittenberg?"  
I'll tell you now again, and then expand.  
I came to see your honored father laid  
to such a rest as warriors might have  
in warlike times, with castles, realms, whole lands  
a-balance on the edge of Future's sword.  
I stayed for love of that proud father's son—  
in Denmark, as in Wittenberg, I stayed  
for you, my lord.

[HAMLET starts, amazed (and apparently also not very bright)]

You knew not that? Despite  
our years together, here and there? Ah, well.  
Perhaps my speechifying thus has made  
it clear; perhaps the pouring out of my  
entire heart and mind before your feet—  
a paltry river, nay, a rivulet,  
a stream, a trickle only, but no less  
a tributary tribute for all that—  
has brought it home to you, as home you are  
to me. I call you "lord" with frequency—  
habitual entitlement, from years  
gone by. In truth, I tell you now, you are  
my most dread lord: both dread in that I find  
myself consumed with awe when pondering  
our long-entwinéd lives and that, somehow,  
I Fortune's fool have not become by loss  
of you; and dread as, apprehensive of  
that loss beyond all others, fearful and  
reluctant am I then to face you, lest  
my facing somehow turn your face from me  
and, turning, fall you then into some void  
that, had I loved sufficiently, would not  
have had the opportunity to seize  
and swallow you. Like Death, perchance—that last  
and emptiest of vacuums, by repute,  
unless belief in Heaven gives one air.  
For me, that reputation sign'lly fails.  
For me, a life without my liege and lord  
would be a fate far worse than even Death  
could be.

[HAMLET stands as still as stone]

You are my family. You are  
my home. If you persist in taking part  
in these, tonight's festivities—despite  
your father, notwithstanding what you stand  
to lose regarding your ancestral land—  
then emptiness is all that waits for me.

[HAMLET is now so still that he appears not actually to be breathing]

I've said, at last, my piece. On your head be  
whatever you decide. You know the fee.

 

[There is a significant pause. Then HAMLET sheathes his sword, comes to HORATIO, and takes him by the shoulders]

 

HAMLET:  
Good man, good friend, staunch ally to myself  
and my much-mournéd lineage alike:  
I hear you, and, at last, obey.

[HORATIO throws his arms wide, as if to embrace HAMLET. HAMLET stops him]

Think not  
obedience will stay my hand for long  
nor stay my mode of action—too hot burns  
my hunger for revenge. I would not be  
the Hamlet that you claim to love had I  
your temper'd temper. Nonetheless, 't is true:  
this night I'll heed your importunings, your  
combinéd counsel, calling to my mind  
and heart that which I too soon would have lost  
had I done as my uncle wished. If God  
exists—and though, when sometimes I bethink  
myself of that which He has wrested from  
my life, my arms, my honor, and without  
my saying "yea", or even knowing why  
(save poor Ophelia—oh, I'll penance do  
in honor of _her_ honor, which I held  
for value and then scattered like cheap coin  
to urchins), then I think He must be false,  
I contemplate apostasy, I _doubt_—  
I must suspect that He, divinely wise,  
regards those highly who, perceiving that  
they could do good if only turned they back  
to life from o'er-strong march toward death, elect  
to stay their hands and, staying, stay alive.  
These three entwinéd arguments you've made  
to me tonight ring changes on my soul  
as if 't were made of small and churchly bells  
set ringing out a dirge, but in such space  
as sometimes may be found in God's most wide  
and holy places, 'til the echoing  
and piercing 'verberations put the lie  
to all the song's original intent  
and, will ye nill ye, open up the heart  
to joy—reluctant joy, but still that sense  
of invitation to reclaim the world  
instead of haring out of it. My blood,  
you say, is hon'rable despite my kin;  
my lands imperil'd need me; so do you.  
If any other man among my friends  
or clan attempted what you have—to change  
my mind, so lately twisted by my own  
endeavors from its usual paths that no  
mere ordinary redirection could  
dissuade me from dissension's rocky track,  
nor signpost, howsoever clearly drawn  
and lettered, shift my steps a jot from that  
determined journey, crosswise though it was—  
I'd almost certainly have done them in  
or tried my best to do so. You, it seems,  
are one whom equal has he none, unique:  
those statements that from others would arouse  
my ire or worse, from you arouse me else.  
I cannot say for certain that my love—  
if such a term records accurately  
the way in which my heart inclines—for you  
equivalent might be with yours for me.  
Perhaps such a comparison resists  
utility. Perhaps this mortal coil—  
a spring, you comprehend, which thus repeats  
itself upon itself and, coiling, strikes  
confusion into hearts of mortals—can  
allow for more definings of this "love"  
than human mind perceives.

[HORATIO, who has been listening patiently, begins to show signs of restlessness]

Perhaps it's I  
who ramble now? I take your meaning, friend—  
beloved?—and I keep it close. My point:  
you have convinced me of the truths you sought  
to lay out like a banquet on my lawn.  
I eat your truths; I take them in. Therefore,  
tomorrow morning, I'll depart with you  
to Wittenberg—or elsewhere, as you may  
advise and counsel me. For 't is as glass  
that in my present humour, all I'd tell  
myself about a destination meet  
for plans to be set going from would be  
as useful as a cart without a wheel  
or maps obtained from blind men. No. You have,  
as 't were, thrown out a rope to me where I,  
inhaling salty water, tossed by waves,  
had fallen from the ship of sanity  
so much more deep than ever I had meant  
to go that truly knew I not which way  
was up and which direction'd lead me down  
to monsters and to drowning. Lost I was,  
without the tools of compass, sextant, and  
first mate to help me navigate the shoals  
of treachery and obligation. Now  
I'm rescued. Now my sight comes clear. Now all  
that redly overlaid my mind recedes  
to manageable distances. With time—  
not too much time, Horatio, do not  
importune me on this!—with time enough  
to think more carefully about what must  
be done, what _I_ must do for this my land  
and family remaining (and, I hope,  
with aid from one who, somehow, loves me still  
despite my madness, insults, abstract moods,  
uncertainty, and lack of guarantee),  
I shall conceive and carry out attacks  
that nothing can withstand. Young Fortinbras  
may have his joy of Denmark, if he can  
achieve it, but that joy will be short-lived;  
I vow this, on my father's grave.

[HORATIO stirs, a little impatiently. HAMLET comes back to himself]

Good friend,  
I cry you pardon. I'll soliloquize  
no more within these walls so steeped in lies.  
It's time to go—indeed, I think you'd say  
it's past that time. I'm ready. Let's away.

[Exeunt HORATIO and HAMLET stage left, just as the noise of a crowd of approaching courtiers can be heard from stage right]


End file.
